Dear Anonymous Monk

Thanks a mil for your help.

I used your code to check and found out that umlauts were the culprits

I created a test folder with test file and ran the code. To my surprise I got new error messages (cf. list below), which have not yet appeared... As you can imagine, the source files remained untouched and no back-up files were created

Use of uninitialized value $dst in rename at C:/strawberry/perl/site/l
+ib/Path/Tiny.pm line 1004.
    Path::Tiny::move(Path::Tiny=ARRAY(0x267ea6c), undef) called at hor
+nbach_entities_20140902.pl line 68
    main::Replace(Path::Tiny=ARRAY(0x267ea6c), "T:/2014/F.../C.../a.xm
+l-2014-09-03.bak") called at script.pl line 59
    main::RetrieveAndBackupXML("t:/F.../C.../\") called at script.pl l
+ine 29
    main::Main() called at script.pl line 18
Use of uninitialized value $dst in concatenation (.) or string at C:/s
+trawberry/perl/site/lib/Path/Tiny.pm line 1004.
    Path::Tiny::move(Path::Tiny=ARRAY(0x267ea6c), undef) called at scr
+ipt.pl line 68
    main::Replace(Path::Tiny=ARRAY(0x267ea6c), "T://F.../C.../a.xml-20
+14-09-03.bak") called at hornbach_entities_20140902.pl line 59
    main::RetrieveAndBackupXML("t:\\2014\\F...\\C...\\") called at hor
+nbach_entities_20140902.pl line 29
    main::Main() called at hornbach_entities_20140902.pl line 18
Error rename on 'T:/2014/F.../C...//a.xml' -> ''':  at C:/strawberry/p
+erl/site/lib/Path/Tiny.pm line 1490.
    Path::Tiny::Error::throw("Path::Tiny::Error", "rename", "T::/2014/
+F.../C.../a.xml' -> ''", "") called at C:/strawberry/perl/site/lib/Pa
+th/Tiny.pm line 126
    Path::Tiny::_throw(Path::Tiny=ARRAY(0x267ea6c), "rename", "T:/2014
+/F.../C.../a.xml' -> ''") called at C:/strawberry/perl/site/lib/Path/
+Tiny.pm line 1004
    Path::Tiny::move(Path::Tiny=ARRAY(0x267ea6c), undef) called at scr
+ipt.pl line 68
    main::Replace(Path::Tiny=ARRAY(0x267ea6c)...[...]
[download]

I seem unable to figure what the exact meaning of the error is, I reckon it must be something in the xml-files,

I am really sorry for all these questions, however it is a good way to learn things.

Thanks a mil for your support

Kind regards

C.

It says you're giving move undef, I don't know why you're doing that, I can't see your code

Dear Anonymous Monk(s)

Of course, sorry I forgot to post the most recent version of the code.

use 5.014;
use strict;
use warnings;
use Path::Tiny qw/ path /;
use POSIX();
use autodie qw/ close /;
use File::BOM;
use Carp::Always; 
use Data::Dump qw/ dd /;
use Win32;
use Win32::Unicode qw/ statW /;

Main( @ARGV );
exit( 0 );

sub Main {

    #my( $infile_paths ) = @_;
    my( $infile_paths ) = 'C:\dev\test_paths.txt';;
    my @paths = GetPaths( $infile_paths );
    #print "The following paths were in the file:\n";
    #say for @paths;
    for my $path ( @paths ){
        RetrieveAndBackupXML( $path );
    }
    #return @paths;
} 

## end sub Main

sub GetPaths  {
      use File::BOM;
##    my @paths = path( shift )->lines_utf8;
    my @paths = path( shift )->lines( { binmode => ":via(File::BOM)" }
+ );
    s/\s+$// for @paths; # "chomp"
    return @paths;
} 

## end sub GetPaths 

sub RetrieveAndBackupXML {
#~     my( $directory ) = @_; ## same as shift @_ ##  same as shift
    my $directory = shift;
    my $date      = POSIX::strftime( '%Y-%m-%d', localtime ); #sets cu
+rrent date and time to be added to backup file
    my $bak       = "$date.bak"; #date added to the .bak file
    my @xml_files = path( $directory )->children( qr/\.xml$/ );
    for my $file ( @xml_files ) {
        Replace( $file, "$file-$bak" ); #sub Replace using it's 2 para
+meters as defined below
    }
} 

## end sub Main

sub Replace {
    my( $in, $bak ) = shift;
    
    path( $in )->move( $bak ); #Creates a copy of the original file
    
    my $infh  = path( $bak )->openr_raw;
    my $outfh = path( $in )->openrw_raw;
    
    while( <$infh> ) {
        #s{&}{&amp;}g; ## will match more than what you want fix it
        s{&amp;amp;}{&amp;}g;
        s{\s>\s}{&gt;}g;
        s{\s<\s}{&lt;}g;
        print $outfh $_;
    }
    
    close $infh;
    close $outfh;
}

 ## end sub Replace
[download]

In case you spot an errors in terms of comments, please do comment on the comment(s) in the code, the more feedback the better, since I might be using that code a lot and might also have to explain to colleagues.

Thanks a mil for your help